U.S. President Barack Obama waves before giving his State of the Union speech before members of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol January 20, 2015, in Washington, DC. Obama laid out a broad agenda to address income inequality, making it easier for Americans to afford college education, and child care. (Photo by Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images)

My writings on race and justice in America spurred a comment to the effect that it is doubtful that I “love my country.”

This comment sparked a couple questions in my mind, to wit: What bearing does whether I love my country have on the validity of my point of view; and, just what might it mean for me to love my country?

Loving one’s country (also called patriotism) is almost universally acknowledged categorically as a virtue, but why? What is a “country” that someone is supposed to love? Is a country the same as its government? I strongly suspect that plenty of those who profess a love of country are not speaking about the government (indeed, it seems one’s professed love of country is often inversely proportional to one’s opinion of its government).

Is a country the same as the geographical entity bearing its name — is it the geographical part of the North American continent comprising 49 states plus Hawaii to which the writer is referring? Somehow I don’t think that’s it, either. Is a country the same as the people who inhabit a particular geographical entity? I don’t know anyone who thinks all the inhabitants of the United States are worthy of their love, and I do know people who do not think I am a true American even though I have lived here all my life.

So just what is this “country” that I am supposed to love? I’m not sure, but I suspect it actually an idea (or ideal) of a country rather than any actual geopolitical entity.

But, of course, not everyone agrees what that idea or ideal is (or should be). After all, that’s why we have competing political parties in this country. So when someone says of me that they don’t believe I love my country, I think what they are really saying is that they don’t believe I love their idea of that country. And that may well be true. But it is also irrelevant to the issue whether the ideas expressed in my blog posts are valid or worthy of consideration.

So do I love my country? Like anyone, I love my idea of what the political entity within which I live in should be or aspire to. The question then becomes, where do I get that idea? For me, it comes from my understanding of what Jesus referred to as the “kingdom of God” and what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “the beloved community.”

In that community, all people are seen and understood as children of God, and their value and dignity as such are upheld and protected by all of its individuals, institutions, and public policies so that the basic human needs of all are met and every person is afforded the opportunity to fully develop and express their God-given gifts.

To the extent that this country — or any country, for that matter — approaches that ideal, then yes, indeed, I love it. And to the extent that it does not, my love for that ideal calls me to work to change, reform, transform the political reality to more closely approximate it.

Pakistan women demonstrators wear burqas and hold a sword in protest against the printing of satirical sketches of the Prophet Muhammad by French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Lahore on January 20, 2015. Pakistan’s parliament on Jan. 15 condemned French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for printing a “blasphemous” cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed as religious groups held rallies throughout the country, including one during which the Tricolour was burnt. (AFP PHOTO / Arif ALIArif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)

Why do we in the U.S so easily connect “their” terrorist violence with religion yet ignore some pretty obvious connections between “our” use of violence and religious piety?

The terror murders of French cartoonists have again brought the specter of religiously motivated violence into the news. Yet those who speak with greatest condemnation about such Islamist violence often get it wrong. Indeed, any comment that claims a simple correlation between religion and violence has almost certainly gotten it wrong.

Yet those who make such claims about Islam these days have at least gotten one thing very right. For contrary to our country’s predominantly secular tone in speaking about foreign affairs, religion in fact everywhere plays a very important role in both war and peace, albeit a complicated one. Indeed, once the again-current images of “them” with their idolatrous cries (“Allahu akbar”) have receded, most of us remember this complexity.

If we take the time to look, for instance, we find that the vast majority of Muslims and of Muslim leaders in Europe have once again condemned the Paris terror committed in the name of their faith. (I have been particularly impressed by the range of comment from Muslim leaders carried in the Huffington Post’s religion report: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/religion/ – something missing in most US media.) And if we also take the time to think, we’ll remember too well the many times that Christianity and recently also Judaism, to say nothing about Hindu and Buddhist nationalisms, have motivated and legitimated murder in the name of faith.

Of course such reflection would also remind us of the far greater role of religion in motivating work for peace. Think of contemporary names like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis. Think even more of the many, many ways that religious faith, Muslim or Christian, Western or Eastern, has continually contributed to histories and cultures that maintain daily patterns of respect and restraint, compassion and charity, in the lives of the billions with whom we share this planet.
(For a very good read on the whole topic see Karen Armstrong’s most recent and typically very detailed study, “Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence,” or her more available essay, “The Myth of Religious Violence.”

So, yes. There clearly is a connection between religious extremism and contemporary violence. It has been much studied and seems widely understood – whether we’re talking about Tamil Hindu suicide bombers in Sri Lanka or Christian abortion clinic bombers in the U.S., about fanatical Israeli settlers or competing Palestinian fanatics. Such religiously linked violence is widely and rightly condemned, even if not yet sufficiently condemned.

An Orthodox Christian man bathes in the Dnieper River for Epiphany on January 19, 2015, in Kiev, Ukraine. The holiday celebrates the baptism of Jesus for Orthodox Christians, who themselves plunge into the icy water to symbolically wash away their sins on a day when it is believed that all water becomes holy. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

If you kept a Christmas Season, it ended on Epiphany. The manger scene so carefully constructed is coming down. Keeping lights up and on for the stock show is an hospitable gesture, but it’s over.

Epiphany is not an anti-climax, however, even though the Shopping Sacramentalists have moved on at least to Presidents’ Day or Valentine’s Day — I even see chocolate Easter eggs in my King Soopers. But the season does end with a bang, if you’ve ever really had an Epiphany.

I mean a real experience of God, an encounter with Jesus or angel messenger, a blast of the Spirit to knock you on your kiester. I’ve had four. One in a priest graveyard when I was 19, a moonless night with a fling of stars overhead. Two others were by the ocean, again with the stars. Each of those times I felt very small, quite alone, and very loved. The last one was about a year ago, in an alley. A young man asked me if I was an elder. I said yes. He talked of being ostracized from a group he’d felt close to. I wept with him, comforted and advised him. In leaving he called me a shaman. I believed him an angel.

Those that followed the bright star that came upon a midnight clear are rather an unclear lot. Usually the Visitors From the East in Matthew’s gospel have a reading paired with it from the prophet Isaiah, which foretells kings coming bearing gifts of gold and frankincense. It’s so closely identified that when Matthew tells of “star seers” (which is best translated as “astrologers”) our pageant makers turn them into kings.

Since they bring three gifts — adding myrrh, an oil for burial–we assume there were three of them, but no number is mentioned in Matthew. I wonder if today the star-followers would be astronomers, if not particle physicists, seeking the truth of a unified field theory explaining everything. I suspect our three kings of Christmas pageant just fit the story well. I wouldn’t be surprised if some future season might have Tiny Tim on his crutch escorting Clara from the Nutcracker onto the grade school stage for a place in the row just behind the camels.

But none of this diminishes the fact, the experience, the belief that some of us have encountered God and/or Jesus in our lives. We’ve had an Epiphany. Have you? Would you invite or welcome one? Or even recognize one? That’s the tricky part — after all, there are lots of stars in the midnight sky, how do you know know which one to follow where? Even if it’s moving, it could be the space station!

The events of past months, during which the deaths of a number of unarmed black men around the country at the hands of police officers have been highlighted in the media and have erupted into the public consciousness, have been both devastating and—paradoxically — heartening to me.

They are devastating not only because they reveal the callousness with which African-American lives are sometimes dispensed with by law enforcement personnel, but also because of the failure of the justice system in our country to condemn and to punish that callousness.

It has become clear to anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear what some people have been trying to tell us for some time now: Black and brown lives matter less than white lives in our society, there is a vast discrepancy between the way law enforcement and the justice system in our country treat black and brown people compared with the treatment of white people.

These events are also heartening, however, because while they are not something unusual or anomalous in America – the wanton killing of black men by law enforcement in our country has been practically a matter of routine for a long time – in these last weeks a public outcry has arisen calling for an end to these killings, for justice and for accountability from those who commit them.

Let me make it clear at this point that I am a white person, and I am writing from a white person’s perspective.

I have been personally outraged by the images and reports of these recent killings that I have seen in the media. On Saturday, Dec. 13, I happened to be in New York City and joined in the march there that drew tens of thousands of people calling for justice. I was, as I said, heartened and encouraged by the diverse cross-section of American society that made up those who participated. It was the kind of demonstration of solidarity that has been needed for quite a long time, and which has the potential to actually bring about change.

However, some of the chants repeated by the crowd that caught my attention and have caused me to reflect a little more deeply were, “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D!” and “Hey,Hey! Ho, Ho! These racists cops have got to go!” Not that I disagree with those statements on their face — the NYPD is a racist organization, and cops who act out by gratuitously killing black people do indeed have to go. But the police are not at the root of the problem. I do not believe that the NYPD is any more racist than is American society in general.

A customer looks at toys in a John Lewis department store on December 19, 2014, in London, as shoppers around the world scurry in the few remaining days before Christmas. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

I’m asking myself this question as much as I’m asking you.

Mainstream Christians have a certain aversion to evangelizing, which is odd. We cede to the “evangelical” traditions the street corner and marketplace, the broadcast and the broadside. We prefer a certain discreet nod toward Jesus, an engraved engagement invitation rather than wrestling some poor schlub into the pew.

What are we scared of? What do we find so offensive? Being pushy, a know-it-all, perceived as marketing the Master’s brand? There is a certain cachet of evangelists, the power powder-blue suit, the pedestal, the well-worn Bible, the habit, the text-dueling expertise. Wearing your faith on your sleeve simply isn’t done among the progressive Christian crowd. Somebody asks you, “Is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior?” and I feel like replying, “I’ll grant you the ‘is’ and the ‘and’, but every other word may take a week to parse out the meaning.”

We don’t need to be so hesitant. The root of “evangelize” is the same word as gospel; they both mean simply “good news.” The evangelist brings good news. Is that so hard? As in the prophet Isaiah’s beautiful song, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns'” (52.7). When was the last time you had someone compliment your feet? That’s good news!

Jesus quotes the same Isaiah in Luke 4 when he begins his public ministry in his hometown synagogue of Nazareth. “He has sent me to bring Good News to the poor, freedom to captives, sight to the blind, release to prisoners, and to declare a year of favor from the Lord.” If you want a Jesus brand, that’s it, his mission statement. But there are some people who may not perceive that as good news, even at the year-end holidays.

“Good news to the poor” can feel like a threat to the rich. How we define “poor” and “rich” affects everything about Jesus, church and Gospel. I’ve spent a lot of time with this question; here’s my thinking. The good news that Jesus is on the side of the poor, especially the orphan, widow and alien, is scary for the rich. But who in America feels rich? Everybody thinks they’re middle class! The homeless woman thinks she’s lower middle class, Bill and Melinda Gates know they’re upper middle class. But if nobody in the U.S. is rich or poor, the Gospel is frankly irrelevant to us.

Mayor Cecil Gutierrez lights the shamash while Rabbi Yerachmiel Gorelik (left) and the other dignitaries watch at the Menorah lighting ceremony celebrating the eight days of Hannukah Sunday at the Loveland Museum/Gallery.

One of the strengths of Judaism has always been that our religious leaders of each era have been able to successfully bridge our ancient tradition with the needs and the zeitgeist of their generation.

To be sure, this does not mean that they made substantial changes to the tradition, it means that rabbis of old were able to understand the intellectual currents of their contemporaries and thus show the relevancy of a timeless religion and Torah.

Maimonides, in the 1200s, for example, wrote his philosophical works in order to bridge Judaism and the intellectual trends of his time. The publication of the Kabbalistic magnum opus, the Zohar, in the 1300s coincided with the popularity of sufism and other forms of non-Jewish mysticism.

This orientation has continued up until recently when some scholars have maintained that certain forms of Hasidism contain distinctively postmodern themes (see Loewenthal, 2013). It can be argued that this trend of constantly reapplying our ancient tradition to the intellectual currents of the time is what has kept our religion alive, vibrant and relevant.

In reaction to the Enlightenment and the Reform and Conservative movements, this rich tradition of applying ancients Jewish ideas, practices and teachings to a contemporary mind set is being carried out less and less.

Instead, we see a battening down of the hatches and a turning inwards to ignore the rest of the contemporary world. The strategy of showing how Judaism is relevant to contemporary mores has always been seen as more effective than blocking outside thinking, even during times when information and knowledge was hard to come by. Today, with the ubiquitousness of knowledge in all its forms, trying to keep out “foreign ideas” is truly an exercise in futility.

The pointlessness of such a pursuit is even more severe given the fact that, today, more that any time before, we are presented with the opportunity to not only show the relevance of Judaism from a theoretical and academic perspective, but also from a practical standpoint. We live in an era that values rituals that improve health and wellness. According to experts the health and wellness market is set to nearly double and grow to $1 trillion annually within the next four years in the United States alone.

In the Middle Ages, Maimonides maintained that commandments in the Torah were designed to improve our lives (Guide for the Perplexed, 3:31). Based on evidence collected over the last 10 years in the field of social science, specifically within the discipline of positive psychology, we now have more evidence that some of our rituals are good for our health. The literature on mindfulness is one example. People who pray each day and learn Torah regularly are practicing a form of mindfulness and are thus reaping real health and wellness benefits. One can hypothesize that the same is true for Shabbat, the laws of Kosher, family purity and Yom Kippur, to name a few. Science now has the tools to actually test and quantify the exact health and wellness benefits that can be gained from any given practice or ritual.

This is therefore an exciting time to be an Orthodox Jew. While other factions of Judaism have long sworn off ritualistic Judaism as anachronistic, we have always argued rituals are still applicable. We now have the tools to empirically prove why ritualistic Judaism is not only relevant and worthwhile, but also the degree to which it is good for your health and wellness. All of this in addition to the spiritual benefits the believer gains from following the will of God.

Doing this type of research is Torah study at its best and most compelling. To me it is no less important, holy or exciting than Maimonides authoring his philosophical work or Moshe DeLeon publishing the Zohar. While the opportunity for deeper understanding of our tradition is making itself available to us, it would be advisable for us to start taking note.

Pope Francis gestures during an audience at the Paul VI hall on October 25, 2014. at the Vatican.( AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images)

I have written before about the “the remarkable shift in Catholic teaching about the death penalty.”

Now, courtesy of Vatican Radio, comes a major address by Pope Francis to members of the International Association of Criminal Law. He strongly confirms what I’d written.

Yet even before Francis’ address on Oct. 23, I’d received responses that likewise expanded the topic beyond capital punishment to other aspects of criminal justice.

A friend with direct experience with criminal justice in this country wrote what most of us know, that “we are creating a vast cohort of unemployable and disenfranchised young men.” He went on to analyze dynamics we generally don’t know or ignore.

“Petty crimes under the influence of drugs and alcohol become life sentences on the installment plan when guys get repeatedly violated on probation. The reward system for probation officers is structured around how many violators they send back to jail rather than around the number whose re-integration into civil society they facilitate … . When prisons are privately run, the profit motive to keep prison populations up creates a disincentive for prison officials even to recommend probation … . The recidivism rates are horrific. Very few guys get free of the system once in it. They are saddled with fines and fees that they can’t repay from the minimum wage jobs they can get, if they are lucky enough to get those.”

A quick trip to Wikipedia indicates that “the incarceration rate in the United States is the highest in the world. While the United States represents about 5 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Imprisonment of America’s 2.3 million prisoners consumes $60.3 billion … in budget expenditures.”

Another friend wrote: “The central point of Mennonite theology and moral teaching is forgiveness ― by God and by people for each other. It isn’t about what we do right, but how we respond to those who do ‘wrong.’… I have never unlearned that basic lesson of forgiveness … . I am convinced that we cannot live together civilly if grudges are held and if we condemn ‘those who trespass against us’ to perpetual estrangement and punishment, let alone put them to death. Even the most monstrous among us can be brought back to civility if we as a genuine collective are truly civil (although some of us may suffer death in the process), which means forgiveness of ‘trespasses’ at its core. That is what gave such power to Martin Luther King’s and Gandhi’s teachings … . Justice is incomplete without mercy, and mercy cannot be accomplished without forgiveness. A justice system that cannot forgive is incomplete and imperfect.”

Another wrote: “My response is the recommendation of a book I am reading for a class on mass incarceration: Christopher Marshall’s Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime and Punishment (Eerdman’s, 2001). It is a rich, wonderfully argued, weighty theological tome focused on Christian scripture. Marshall quite fairly lays out various views of crime and punishment (and sin and good and evil) before making a case for restorative justice.”

A final response got, perhaps, to the heart of the matter: “The struggle against evil has to be moral and effective, without being malicious. Dante was right: ‘malice is the sin most hated by God.’”

Then came Pope Francis’ address, which “called on all men and women of good will to fight for the abolishment of the death penalty in ‘all of its forms’ and for the improvement of prison conditions … .”

“In a dense and impassioned discourse” the Vatican Radio report continued, “Pope Francis said that the ‘life sentence’ is really a ‘concealed death sentence’ and that is why – he explained – he had it annulled in the Vatican Penal Code.”

A catechism is a tool for teaching the young, and clarifying for the old the holdings of a religion, major and minor.

For instance, the Roman Catholic Baltimore Catechism, revised in 1941, asks questions American bishops want answered for their flock, and their flock’s children.

Current Catholic parents, the rams and ewes, also want answers for their little lambs, and they aren’t alone. The catechism is still available from CatholiCity.com. Of course it is. Answers are clearly provided.

Here are some questions from the opening chapters, with answers provided by me, as best I can, from the perspective of a progressive Christian. Catechisms are meant to provide surety; mine, not so much.

Who made the world? God made the world. But it’s tough to understand how.

Who is God? Dunno. Think very big, huge, then bigger. That’s the point. Can’t know.

Who made me? Mommy and Daddy, and all the moms and dads before them. God is involved at a loving molecular level, and says that it is good. Hold the sperm donor questions until you’re older.

What must we do to save our souls? Souls? Do souls exist separate from the mind, or the brain? I believe something of us lives on, don’t know how or where, other than in the love of our lovers. I believe in soul as a metaphor, to represent much of the spiritual realm, but I don’t think you can locate it any place particular, now or later.

How shall we know the things we are to believe? Really good question! I’d trust experiences and relationships more than catechisms.

Where is God? Everywhere. If God is everywhere, why do we not see Him? Maybe it’s not a Him. You’re looking for God in a particular way; God will be visible or invisible to us in ways we cannot expect.

Does God know all things? God knows all things, even our most secret thoughts, words and actions. And if that doesn’t make you afraid of God, the old catechism isn’t working.

Is there but one God? Yes, there is but one God, for all religions. Unless there are parallel universes. Even then, pretty sure just one God. Per universe?

Who were the first man and woman? Adam and Eve. Many, many years later, God and surgeons created Stevie, and we’re just learning now about Stevie.

On what day did Christ rise from the dead? Easter Sunday, or maybe Saturday night, into Sunday. Nobody bothered, apparently, to write down the DATE, so Easter is always on a Sunday. Or the Saturday. Jesus was born on Dec. 25, but that time nobody noticed the day of the week.

What do you believe of Jesus Christ? Now we’re getting somewhere. Jesus is the fullest human revelation of the Christian concept of God, from his own mouth, rooted in the Jewish tradition, and living on today as Christians try to discern and live in the Reign of God. The Reign of God is where and when God’s way holds sway. It is built from and full of justice and peace.

Who is the Holy Ghost? Today we say Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit acts through the lives of all believers. We co-create the Reign of God through the life of the Spirit within us.

How is the soul like God? The soul is like God because it is a spirit that will never die, and has understanding and free will.

Why did God make you? Old answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next. Lose the Him. And I’m an agnostic about what forever in the next means. I believe that there is life after death, but I don’t believe anyone’s particular version of it. Can’t know.

Of which must we take more care, our soul or our body? Old answer: We must take more care of our soul than of our body. Oooh, no, no. Our bodies are special vessels of God’s life. It’s where our God-given human dignity dwells, and acts.

My turn to ask the catechism a question. Those living, beautiful things outside, the trees, where do they come from? God made them, the catechist said. Yes, but what are they made from? How are they made? They are made from air. “A tree is mostly made of wood and wood is mostly carbon, which is why it’s burned for fire. Trees take in carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen. Photosynthesis strips out the oxygen and releases it into the atmosphere. The carbon remains in the tree and the tree grows. In other words, trees grow out of the air.” In the Light of What We Know, Z.H. Rahman. Lovely.

Who made the air? the catechism should ask, but doesn’t. I would say, for the science I can Google it. Or I can truly say, God made the air. Next question.

“Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why (we) have invented God — a being capable of understanding.” (Graham Green, “The Quiet American.”) Capable, God is, of understanding. But not capable of being completely understood. That’s the God part.

Here’s a question catechism writers of all stripes should tackle: In a time of perpetual war and overbearing politics, Psalm 2 begins, “Why do the nations rage, and the people utter folly?” Well? We spend too much time and energy on empire, acquiring power over others, amassing wealth devoid of spiritual riches, and distrusting our divine gifts.

Is knowledge of God something we seek? Yes, and it is good. But wisdom of God and in life often does not begin or end with knowledge. Wisdom is knowing when to say, I don’t know, have no clue, wish I did, but I got nada. Pursuit of knowledge of God and answers that close doors can lead to gnosticism, a false sense of closure about God. Wisdom is older, fuller, deeper, and often produces better and new questions than final answers.

If you have other questions from the catechism, the old or the one you’ve made for yourself, I’d love to hear them, and maybe take a crack at answering them. Maybe we’ll make a new catechism together. So subsequent generations can call it and us old.

Covered in prayer shawls, ultra-Orthodox Jewish men pray during the holiday of Sukkot, as one worshipper holds an etrog at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem’s Old City, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014. According to Jewish tradition, Jews are commanded to bind together a palm frond, or “lulav,” with two other branches, along with an “etrog,” a lemon-like citrus fruit, that make up the “four species” used in holiday rituals. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

The alarming success ISIS has had in conquering territory in the Iraq and Syria coupled with our current inability to confront or hold them back is deeply troubling.

Early this year, many of us watched in horror as ISIS carried out acts of unspeakable evil and posted them to Facebook and other social media sites. Many of us asked why the United States government was silent when it came to this horrific group. We were alarmed when State Department statements and briefing papers made no mention of this threat.

While Israel was fighting a war against Hamas early in the summer the Obama administration and the rest of the “civilized” world were busy condemning Israel for excessive force, while they were silent about the barbarism of ISIS.

President Obama now wants us to believe that while those of us with a Facebook account were aware of what ISIS was doing, the U.S. intelligence community was not. It seems to me that there is more to it then that: This was a case of willful ignorance and that ignorance continues to this day.

This article is not meant to be an attack on the president of the United States, and neither am I a partisan, but this administration has made some critical errors that has led directly to the frightening situation we currently find ourselves in. Worst of all, however, it is unaware that is it is making these mistakes and thus continues to make them. To be clear, the logic that leaving the Iraqis to their own devices will force them to defend their country against radicals like ISIS is flawed.

Here is why: Subservient societies do not easily transition to become autonomous. Freedom is not just a state of being, it is a state of mind. One can be physically free yet mentally enslaved. One cannot just take societies that have been enslaved to a dictator for centuries and give them democracy in the belief that freedom will reign and that the newly liberated society will put their lives on the line to defend their liberties.

The Biblical story of liberation is instructive here. According to the Biblical account it took 10 miraculous plagues and the splitting of a sea for the Israelites to be freed from Egyptian slavery. But that was not the end of the saga. The Israelites then spent 40 years in the desert before the transition from slaves to free people was complete.

This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Kelly Reilly, left, and Brendan Gleeson in a scene from “Calvary.” (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight)

A new film has challenged me to try to think more deeply about the reality of evil in our world and in ourselves – about heinous crimes deserving punishment, but also the more “ordinary” forms of evil we daily experience.

And thus also to try to think about the disturbing power of goodness.

The film, titled “Calvary,” is a recent Irish import that I strongly recommend. It’s about a somewhat gruff (or direct), but very good priest in a small town on Ireland’s rugged west coast.

The film opens with a confessional threat of murder (“next Sunday”) by a man who’d been sexually abused as a child by another priest. Although sorely tempted both to defend himself and to flee, the priest spends the seven days of his “passion week” in obedience to his vocation as a pastor.

Through him, in the course of that week, we meet a good number of different villagers. Some are quite hostile to the Catholic Church, others more wary of the priest’s directness, his concern for them and insight into their deeper reality.

For all are caught in the tangled web of their passions, most by their own vices, but also by inclinations to goodness.

The contrast between this cinematic depiction of “Calvary” and Mel Gibson’s much applauded “Passion” couldn’t be greater. Despite realistic gore, Gibson’s film seems a cartoon when compared to Calvary’s deeply human realism. (Credit goes above all to writer-director John Michael McDonagh and also to Brendan Gleeson’s lead performance.)

Yet I am not here writing a film review. I’m attempting to reflect on good and evil, and on the violence which seems always to connect them. And thereby attempting another kind of reflection on capital punishment.

For the most widely remembered death penalty in human history is the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.

Christians generally have little difficulty connecting that crucifixion with sin and evil. That Jesus died “for our sins” is known from childhood and believed in at least perfunctory ways, though often enough in profound ways.

Yet what tangled webs we Christians weave. Of late, some of us have correctly learned to blame the Romans for Jesus’ execution. For long, however, we blamed “the Jews” because unfortunately some Gospel narratives did just that. Thus for centuries Jesus’ crucifixion fed Christian anti-Semitism, and led Jews to see the cross as a sign of Christian hatred.

This terrible blame game, moreover, enabled too many Christians to avoid relating that execution, that death penalty, to their own passions and vices – other than (again) by believing that Jesus’ death “bought” God’s forgiveness of these sins. But not believing (or not really believing) that our sins today, 20 centuries later, remain the cause of that execution.

Yet the film “Calvary” makes that causal connection inescapable.

For it probes, in the ordinary lives of its different characters, many forms of quite believable sin and evil, as also many hints of good and two examples of real goodness.

Where is your moral compass pointing? What are your social values? Hark will explore faith, morals, ethics and character at the intersection of religion ethics, culture, politics, media, science, education, economics and philosophy. At times this blog will alert readers to breaking news and trends. At times it will attempt to look more deeply into intriguing subjects. Hark means to listen attentively, and we will, as readers talk back to the news.